CHAPTER 27
ON THE SAND BAR
Owen Ford left Four Winds the next morning. In the
evening Anne went over to see Leslie, but found nobody.
The house was locked and there was no light in any
window. It looked like a home left soulless. Leslie
did not run over on the following day--which Anne
thought a bad sign.
Gilbert having occasion to go in the evening to the
fishing cove, Anne drove with him to the Point,
intending to stay awhile with Captain Jim. But the
great light, cutting its swathes through the fog of the
autumn evening, was in care of Alec Boyd and Captain
Jim was away.
"What will you do?" asked Gilbert. "Come with me?"
"I don't want to go to the cove--but I'll go over the
channel with you, and roam about on the sand shore till
you come back. The rock shore is too slippery and grim
tonight."
Alone on the sands of the bar Anne gave herself up to
the eerie charm of the night. It was warm for
September, and the late afternoon had been very foggy;
but a full moon had in part lessened the fog and
transformed the harbor and the gulf and the surrounding
shores into a strange, fantastic, unreal world of pale
silver mist, through which everything loomed
phantom-like. Captain Josiah Crawford's black
schooner sailing down the channel, laden with potatoes
for Bluenose ports, was a spectral ship bound for a far
uncharted land, ever receding, never to be reached.
The calls of unseen gulls overhead were the cries of
the souls of doomed seamen. The little curls of foam
that blew across the sand were elfin things stealing up
from the sea-caves. The big, round-shouldered
sand-dunes were the sleeping giants of some old
northern tale. The lights that glimmered palely across
the harbor were the delusive beacons on some coast of
fairyland. Anne pleased herself with a hundred fancies
as she wandered through the mist. It was
delightful--romantic-- mysterious to be roaming here
alone on this enchanted shore.
But was she alone? Something loomed in the mist before
her--took shape and form--suddenly moved towards her
across the wave-rippled sand.
"Leslie!" exclaimed Anne in amazement. "Whatever are
you doing--HERE--tonight?"
"If it comes to that, whatever are YOU doing here?"
said Leslie, trying to laugh. The effort was a
failure. She looked very pale and tired; but the love
locks under her scarlet cap were curling about her
face and eyes like little sparkling rings of gold.
"I'm waiting for Gilbert--he's over at the Cove. I
intended to stay at the light, but Captain Jim is
away."
"Well, _I_ came here because I wanted to walk--and
walk--and WALK," said Leslie restlessly. "I couldn't
on the rock shore--the tide was too high and the rocks
prisoned me. I had to come here--or I should have gone
mad, I think. I rowed myself over the channel in
Captain Jim's flat. I've been here for an hour.
Come--come--let us walk. I can't stand still. Oh,
Anne!"
"Leslie, dearest, what is the trouble?" asked Anne,
though she knew too well already.
"I can't tell you--don't ask me . I wouldn't mind your
knowing-- I wish you did know--but I can't tell you--I
can't tell anyone. I've been such a fool, Anne--and
oh, it hurts so terribly to be a fool. There's nothing
so painful in the world."
She laughed bitterly. Anne slipped her arm around her.
"Leslie, is it that you have learned to care for Mr.
Ford?"
Leslie turned herself about passionately.
"How did you know?" she cried. "Anne, how did you
know? Oh, is it written in my face for everyone to
see? Is it as plain as that?"
"No, no. I--I can't tell you how I knew. It just came
into my mind, somehow. Leslie, don't look at me like
that!"
"Do you despise me?" demanded Leslie in a fierce, low
tone. "Do you think I'm wicked--unwomanly? Or do you
think I'm just plain fool?"
"I don't think you any of those things. Come, dear,
let's just talk it over sensibly, as we might talk over
any other of the great crises of life. You've been
brooding over it and let yourself drift into a morbid
view of it. You know you have a little tendency to do
that about everything that goes wrong, and you promised
me that you would fight against it."
"But--oh, it's so--so shameful," murmured Leslie. "To
love him--unsought--and when I'm not free to love
anybody."
"There's nothing shameful about it. But I'm very sorry
that you have learned to care for Owen, because, as
things are, it will only make you more unhappy."
"I didn't LEARN to care," said Leslie, walking on and
speaking passionately. "If it had been like that I
could have prevented it. I never dreamed of such a
thing until that day, a week ago, when he told me he
had finished his book and must soon go away. Then--
then I knew. I felt as if someone had struck me a
terrible blow. I didn't say anything--I couldn't
speak--but I don't know what I looked like. I'm so
afraid my face betrayed me. Oh, I would die of shame
if I thought he knew--or suspected."
Anne was miserably silent, hampered by her deductions
from her conversation with Owen. Leslie went on
feverishly, as if she found relief in speech.
"I was so happy all this summer, Anne--happier than I
ever was in my life. I thought it was because
everything had been made clear between you and me, and
that it was our friendship which made life seem so
beautiful and full once more. And it WAS, in part--but
not all--oh, not nearly all. I know now why everything
was so different. And now it's all over--and he has
gone. How can I live, Anne? When I turned back into
the house this morning after he had gone the solitude
struck me like a blow in the face."
"It won't seem so hard by and by, dear," said Anne,
who always felt the pain of her friends so keenly that
she could not speak easy, fluent words of comforting.
Besides, she remembered how well- meant speeches had
hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.
"Oh, it seems to me it will grow harder all the time,"
said Leslie miserably. "I've nothing to look forward
to. Morning will come after morning--and he will not
come back--he will never come back. Oh, when I think
that I will never see him again I feel as if a great
brutal hand had twisted itself among my heartstrings,
and was wrenching them. Once, long ago, I dreamed of
love--and I thought it must be beautiful--and NOW--its
like THIS. When he went away yesterday morning he was
so cold and indifferent. He said `Good- bye, Mrs.
Moore' in the coldest tone in the world--as if we had
not even been friends--as if I meant absolutely nothing
to him. I know I don't--I didn't want him to
care--but he MIGHT have been a little kinder."
"Oh, I wish Gilbert would come," thought Anne. She
was racked between her sympathy for Leslie and the
necessity of avoiding anything that would betray Owen's
confidence. She knew why his good-bye had been so
cold--why it could not have the cordiality that their
good-comradeship demanded--but she could not tell
Leslie.
"I couldn't help it, Anne--I couldn't help it," said
poor Leslie.
"I know that."
"Do you blame me so very much?"
"I don't blame you at all."
"And you won't--you won't tell Gilbert?"
" Leslie! Do you think I would do such a thing?"
"Oh, I don't know--you and Gilbert are such CHUMS. I
don't see how you could help telling him everything."
"Everything about my own concerns--yes. But not my
friends' secrets."
"I couldn't have HIM know. But I'm glad YOU know. I
would feel guilty if there were anything I was ashamed
to tell you. I hope Miss Cornelia won't find out.
Sometimes I feel as if those terrible, kind brown eyes
of hers read my very soul. Oh, I wish this mist would
never lift--I wish I could just stay in it forever,
hidden away from every living being. I don't see how I
can go on with life. This summer has been so full. I
never was lonely for a moment. Before Owen came there
used to be horrible moments--when I had been with you
and Gilbert--and then had to leave you. You two would
walk away together and I would walk away ALONE. After
Owen came he was always there to walk home with me--we
would laugh and talk as you and Gilbert were
doing--there were no more lonely, envious moments for
me. And NOW! Oh, yes, I've been a fool. Let's have
done talking about my folly. I'll never bore you with
it again."
"Here is Gilbert, and you are coming back with us,"
said Anne, who had no intention of leaving Leslie to
wander alone on the sand-bar on such a night and in
such a mood. "There's plenty of room in our boat for
three, and we'll tie the flat on behind."
"Oh, I suppose I must reconcile myself to being the odd
one again," said poor Leslie with another bitter
laugh. "Forgive me, Anne--that was hateful. I ought
to be thankful--and I AM--that I have two good friends
who are glad to count me in as a third. Don't mind my
hateful speeches. I just seem to be one great pain all
over and everything hurts me."
"Leslie seemed very quiet tonight, didn't she?" said
Gilbert, when he and Anne reached home. "What in the
world was she doing over there on the bar alone?"
"Oh, she was tired--and you know she likes to go to the
shore after one of Dick's bad days."
"What a pity she hadn't met and married a fellow like
Ford long ago," ruminated Gilbert. "They'd have made
an ideal couple, wouldn't they?"
"For pity's sake, Gilbert, don't develop into a
match-maker. It's an abominable profession for a
man," cried Anne rather sharply, afraid that Gilbert
might blunder on the truth if he kept on in this
strain.
"Bless us, Anne-girl, I'm not matchmaking," protested
Gilbert, rather surprised at her tone. "I was only
thinking of one of the might-have-beens."
"Well, don't. It's a waste of time," said Anne. Then
she added suddenly:
"Oh, Gilbert, I wish everybody could be as happy as we
are."
